So, what went wrong?

Okay, so clearly my career at predicting major sporting event outcomes is off to a rather rocky start. I picked the Rockies in 6, and not only did they not win the Series, they were utterly dominated in a Red Sox 4 game sweep. I said in my prediction post that the Rockies were legit, and that even a 4 game sweep would not change my assessment of that. Well, there was a 4 game sweep, and I do stand by that assessment. Obviously though, I missed a thing or two when laying out this series.

First of all, in looking at the Rockies, I missed the fact that, despite continuing their massive string of 21 out of 22 games through the NLCS, the Rockies weren't playing all that well at the end of the NLCS. In their 4 game sweep of the Diamondbacks, the Rockies hit only .222 as a team, with a .316 OBP and .311 SLG. That's not good hitting folks. And this came against a Diamondbacks pitching staff that was certainly solid, but outside of Brandon Webb, was far from spectacular. Clearly some of their offensive momentum had left them before the World Series had even started.

Secondly, I think I underestimated the effect that the "bright lights" of the World Series would have on the Rockies. A lot of people want to blame the terrible start the Rockies got off to in the Series on the layoff. I think you can possibly attribute Jeff Francis' poor Game 1 start to that, but I wouldn't go a whole lot further than that. History says those layoffs just don't have the kind of negative meaning that we assign to them, and I'll stick with that. However, due to the fact that the Rockies came out of nowhere, and were never in a playoff series that drew national focus until the World Series, I think they managed to play in a bunch of big games without ever getting exposed to the full force of playoff scrutiny. It seemed to me that a lot of their guys looked a bit dazed when the series opened, and I think that's somewhat to be expected.

I also failed to acknowledge the fact that, in addition to having the best current postseason pitcher in Josh Beckett, the Red Sox have another guy in their rotation in Curt Schilling who is an all-timer when it comes to October baseball. His shaky Game 2 start in the ALCS had me questioning whether he could get it done in this Series, and I was obviously wrong. I also did not give enough credit to Boston setup man Hideki Okajima. His work in providing the bridge between Schilling and Papelbon in Game 2 (which I believe was the pivotal game in the Series) was absolutely spectacular.

I knew that Boston was the better team, but thought that Colorado had what it took to give them a run. I think the reality is that I picked a little too much with my heart on this one, which is something I'll have to learn to put aside a little better if I want to be a good, objective sportswriter in the future.